December 18, 2014

OM/ONE: The World's First Levitating Bluetooth Speaker

The field of audio is so mature
and saturated that coming up with a genuinely novel approach to speakers is a
rather steep challenge.

But a new product created by a
team in Oakland, California, takes audiophiles into new territory by delivering
a speaker that levitates — no, really, it levitates. Using the now well-known
idea of magnetic levitation, the speaker floats about an inch off its base,
allowing the user to spin it around in mid-air while listening to the audio.
After we had a chance to
test the Bluetooth speaker out in person, we can confirm that the product
does indeed work as described.

The Om/One device also
contains a microphone, allowing the levitating orb to take calls, too. On its
surface, which looks something like cross between the Death Star and a soccer
ball, is a hidden sensor that allows you to turn the device on and off as well
as pair it with your audio source, such as a smartphone.

OK, so it looks cool. But aside
from the novelty factor, why would you need a levitating
speaker?

"The fact that it levitates gives
us an angle on some audio techniques that make the speaker a lot better," David
DeVillez, the co-founder and CEO of Om Audio, told Mashable.

"The unit has a 3-watt RMS
[root mean square] amplifier inside of it, and it can produce a 110dB output,
where competitive products like the [Jawbone] Jambox or the
[Beats] Pill... they're using 9 to 10 watts to get 110dB," says
DeVillez, the former director of operations, R&D and engineering at Velodyne
Acoustics. Because the speaker is levitating
it's not syncing to any kind of surface, so it doesn't have any kind of low-end
loss … it's all coming through the
driver, which means we can get more audio output with less amplifier
power."While putting the device through
its paces, we snatched it off its magnetic perch to see how it might feel as a
portable speaker unit. It's a little on the heavy side, but not so much that
carrying it around in a bag would be particularly noticeable.

The only hiccup came when
replacing the speaker back on its levitation stand; that took a bit a practice.
Nevertheless, the Om/One will almost certainly snag the interest of music lovers
who want to add a bit of futuristic spice to their setups.

The device is scheduled to
go on sale in December for $179 and can be preordered on the company's website.